1. Field of the Invention
The following invention relates to systems and methods for designing automotive vehicles.
2. Background Art
Traditionally, automotive vehicles have been designed as a composition of mechanical and electrical parts. A manufacturer may represent a vehicle in its records as a bill of materials, or parts list, along with computer drawings. The vehicle can then be manufactured to the specifications set out in the bill of materials and drawings.
A typical design cycle may include a manufacturer's marketing department indicating a set of requirements to the engineering department, who determine what parts to use and how to configure them to meet the requirements. This may be an iterative process, with engineering responsibility often being divided across vehicle subsystems. For instance, a separate group of engineers may be assigned to work on the vehicle's powertrain. Those engineers' responsibility could, in turn, be divided among vehicle engine and transmission.
Automobile manufacturers often design and manufacture multiple vehicles simultaneously. Because of volume discounts from suppliers, the cost of duplicative engineering efforts, and other efficiency concerns, it is advantageous for the manufacturer to standardize engineering knowledge, such as parts use and implementation, across different product offerings and thus leverage engineering efforts across different products. To achieve this, teams of engineers often work on more than one product offering, and are encouraged to drive this standardization.
However, the common parts-centric design scheme can prevent realizing the true potential of engineering standardization. It can be difficult to track the engineering knowledge behind the existing physical reuse, and thus may not be conducive to future reuse, especially as human talent migrates to different jobs. Thus it is desirable to have a system for and method of designing vehicles that better preserves engineering knowledge and promotes effective reuse and standardization.